I BOUGHT A JACKET AT DUNUSA NOW IT'S HAUNTING ME

I BOUGHT A JACKET AT DUNUSA NOW IT'S HAUNTING ME

The Jacket I Can’t Return: My Haunting jacket from Dunusa

I used to love shopping at Dunusa in Joburg. It felt like a treasure hunt — rows of second-hand clothes from all over the world, a smell of dust and history hanging over every rack. People laugh when you tell them clothes can carry spirits. I used to laugh too. Now, I don’t.

That day is still clear in my mind. It was cold and cloudy, the kind of weather that makes you buy jackets you don’t even need. I bought five of them, each one different — one leather, one denim, one army green, one grey hoodie, one brown with torn sleeves. I walked home feeling like I’d won. I didn’t know I’d brought something else back.

It started as a whisper. The first night, I woke up to the sound of someone pacing in my room. My heart raced, but when I switched on the light, there was no one. Only the jackets hanging on the chair, swaying slightly as if touched. Then I heard it — a voice, soft and low, like wind moving through a tunnel: *“Give it back… my jacket… give it back…”*

I thought it was stress. I prayed, sprinkled salt, even moved the jackets into another room. The voice didn’t stop. It grew louder, angrier. The whisper became a growl: *“Return it. Return it to my house.”* The worst part? I don’t know which jacket. I don’t even know whose “house.”

One night I snapped. I took all five jackets, walked to the edge of the street, and dumped them in a public bin. I came back home relieved, thinking it was finally over. But the next morning, all five jackets were back inside my house, neatly folded on my bed. I screamed until my throat burned. That day, I knew it wasn’t just a voice. Something had followed me home.

Now, it doesn’t only whisper. It touches. Sometimes I wake up with scratches on my arms and legs. Doors slam on their own. Windows rattle even on windless nights. The air turns icy, heavy, as if someone is standing right behind me. But when I turn, there’s nothing there — only the faint smell of old fabric and dust.

The worst nights are when it talks to me. The voice no longer sounds like wind; it sounds like a man, deep and hoarse, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying. It calls me by my name even though I never told it. It tells me: *“Return it to my house or I’ll take you instead.”* I press my hands over my ears, pray, sing hymns — but the voice crawls under my skin.

I’ve called pastors, prophets, healers. Some tell me to burn the jackets, but I’m too scared. Others tell me to return to Dunusa and leave them at the exact stall where I found them. But how do you return something when you don’t know who it truly belongs to?

This is my confession. I don’t know what I brought home. I don’t know how to make it leave. I’m scared to sleep. I’m scared to live. If you’ve ever bought second-hand clothes, be careful. Not everything we wear belongs to the living. Some things come with memories. Some come with owners who never left.